Pressure Valve

"These are private words addressed to you in public." -- T.S. Eliot

Thursday, December 04, 2003

It Just Keeps Getting Better

The story of Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad just keeps getting better. Yesterday, I posted on the revelation that the White House is furiously backtracking on its claim that a British Airways jet radioed Air Force One. The White House now says that it overheard a radio transmission from the jet to the tower. British Airways flatly denies that any such conversation took place. Period. All a lie to make the story play better on Thanksgiving weekend.

But the new revelation is that the gorgeous, picture-perfect turkey that Bush was photographed serving to the troops was a prop. You remember the photo, right? It was on the cover of every newspaper in America.

A prop.

So the photo would look more impressive.

And that's not even the best part.

Check out this explanation:

"White House officials do not deny that they craft elaborate events to showcase Bush, but they maintain that these events are designed to accurately dramatize his policies and to convey qualities about him that are real.

"'This was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true, that he really cares about the soldiers and gets emotional when he sees them,' Mary Matalin, a former administration official, said about the trip to Baghdad. 'You have to figure out how to capture the Bush we know, even if it doesn't come through in a speech situation or a press conference. He regularly rejects anything that is not him.'"

For those of you who skip over quotes when reading, I'll summarize: the White House stages fake events because reality doesn't show the Bush that "people know is true."

(Bonus points to anyone that remembers this quote from Reagan, during his televised speech on Iran-Contra in 1987: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.")

Anyway, on another note, I will be posing for photos later today. These photos will show me at home with my family at 5:30 p.m., with an empty briefcase and a cheerful expression on my face. I will be a steadfast, unflappable Fred MacMurray type. It's the me that "people know is true."